The Saginaw School District Board of Education meets in November. Board President Rudy Patterson is suing the district over two FOIA requests the district denied.Lindsay Knake | MLive.com

SAGINAW, MI — The Saginaw School District denies the Board of Education president's claim that top administrators ordered employees to destroy audio recordings of school board meetings.

Rudy Patterson, a board member elected in 2011, is suing the Saginaw school board, Superintendent Carlton Jenkins and Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Labor Relations Kelley Peatross to obtain unedited audio copies of four meetings, attorney fees and punitive damages.

He filed the suit Oct. 30 in Saginaw County Circuit Court after the district denied two Freedom of Information Act requests he filed in August and September, seeking audio copies of the four meetings.

Saginaw School District on Nov. 25 filed a legal response to Patterson's lawsuit in Saginaw County Circuit Court.

The district denied several of Patterson's claims, including;

The fact that the meetings are audio-recorded

It was past practice to provide a board member with an audio recording of a meeting

Jenkins and employees prepared school board minutes using "euphemistic descriptions" of school board discussions and activities to not disclose commentary or behavior

Jenkins instructed employees to destroy the recordings, and Jenkins and Peatross told Patterson the recordings did not exist.

The district denied the Sept. 25 FOIA request without justification. The district stated Michigan FOIA law does not require the district to produce a document that does not exist.

Saginaw School District has recordings of the meetings on digital recording devices. Peatross offered to make the technology available for Patterson to use to listen to the digital recordings of the meetings and transcribe them himself, according to an Oct. 2 letter to Patterson.

District officials have declined comment on the lawsuit. Jenkins said in November officials are focused on educating students.

Patterson on Nov. 5 declined to comment on the lawsuit, referring The Saginaw News to his attorney, Michael J. Forster.

“The law doesn’t say that the school district is entitled to put restrictions on somebody getting a copy of a document, whether it’s a written letter or audio recording," Forster said. "Regardless of his motivation, he’s entitled to it. What he did was pretty simple.”

— Lindsay Knake covers education for MLive/The Saginaw News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com.